Problems with headset microphone

Ask Fedora
1

I have the exact same problem. I switched to pipewire and still can’t figure a way to solve it

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OS Version: Fedora 36 / Fresh Install (Not upgraded from the previous version) / Fully upgraded

Headphones: sennheiser pxc 550-ii

  1. It supports the following Bluetooth profiles (AVRCP, A2DP, HFP, HSP, DIP)
    2 It supports the following Bluetooth codecs (AptX™, AptX™ Low Latency, AAC, SBC)

Attempts to fix: I tried installing pipewire to replace pulsaudio like

sudo dnf install --allowerasing pipewire-pulseaudio 
systemctl --user start pipewire-pulse.service pipewire-pulse.socket

I’m still a novice user of Linux and recently migrated from Windows so I’m still not so good in troubleshooting please let me know if there is anything I can pull from my system (logs, …etc.) that can help.

Problem Description:

When I connect my Bluetooth headphones it connects well and it’s running A2DP sink using AAC codec by default. However, even when I connect my headphones the laptop’s microphone is still selected by default input device. And when I switch the input to the headphone’s mic the headphones output is changed to mono channel only.

2

Welcome to ask :fedora:

I moved this to a new thread.

The old thread was last used over a year ago and was originally started more than 2 years ago. All the software has been updated a lot with newer released versions both of the OS and the individual packages since then.

Your problem will receive better attention as a new thread instead of hijacking the previous one.

We now need a lot more info about what the exact problem is.
What version of OS?
New install or upgraded from earlier version?
What headphones? USB, Bluetooth, other?
What have you done to try and fix it?
Is the system fully updated? sudo dnf upgrade

3

Thank you @computersavvy ^^

  1. I’m running Fedora 36
  2. It’s a new install
  3. The headphones are sennheiser pxc 550-ii
    3.1 It supports the following Bluetooth profiles (AVRCP, A2DP, HFP, HSP, DIP)
    3.2 It supports the following Bluetooth codecs (AptX™, AptX™ Low Latency, AAC, SBC)
  4. I tried installing pipewire to replace pulsaudio like
sudo dnf install --allowerasing pipewire-pulseaudio 
systemctl --user start pipewire-pulse.service pipewire-pulse.socket
  1. Yes the system is fully updated.

I’m still a novice user of Linux and recently migrated from Windows so I’m still not so good in troubleshooting please let me know if there is anything I can pull from my system (logs, …etc.) that can help.

Problem Description:

When I connect my Bluetooth headphones it connects well and it’s running A2DP sink using AAC codec by default. However, even when I connect my headphones the laptop’s microphone is still selected by default input device.

And when I switch the input to the headphone’s mic the headphones output is changed to mono channel only.

4

Is this the only complaint?

Are you referring to the mic output or sound input to the headphone?

If the mic is what you are referring to, this would be because the headphone has only one microphone where other inputs such as the webcam or laptop often have dual (stereo) mics.

5

The problem is the sound output, not the mic. Whenever I use the headphones as input device, the sound output becomes mono but when I use another input device (e.g., the laptop’s built-in microphone) I can listen to stereo music on the headphones. The imagur link below contains two images that show the problem

[Album] imgur.com
6

When you have that settings window displayed for audio, what happens if you use the test button for the headphone? It pops up a window with test buttons for left and right. Do you hear sound in both ears regardless of which button is pushed or does the test sound come to the proper earpiece?

There is another tool to control audio. You might install pavucontrol and test to see what happens when you use that.

This honestly is the first time I have heard of this type issue.

7

When I hit the test button if the headphones microphone is selected as the input device I see the “Mono” channel.

If I change the input device to the laptop’s built-in microphone and keep the headphones only for output I can see stereo channels and they work correctly (left & right).

I can’t use stereo while using the headphones mic as an input device.

8

I created this screen recording to show the problem

9

This thread explains the same problem as well.

https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/cannot-use-aptx-audio-when-i-want-to-use-audio-input-at-the-same-time/66725/4

1 Like
10

Major bump in this thread. I can’t believe after being shown the exact issue that your having nobody has responded with a solution to this. I haven’t found anything. I simply cannot believe that linux does not have the ability to support high quality bluetooth stereo playback while also using a microphone. This seems like nowadays it would be a very basic feature.

– edit –

It also should not be expected to use a text editor or the terminal to modify system configuration files. This should be a driver or package that is easily installed at the very least with a dnf command.

11

Because it’s most likely not a Linux problem; it’s a Bluetooth problem. If you use the microphone, it switches to a different two-way codec that is lower quality.

Here are two discussions about the same thing happening on Windows for the same headset:

And also this discussion that points out that AptX is no guarantee that you can get high quality duplex audio (though that’s for a different headset, the point stands):

If you can show that this headset supports high-quality duplex on e.g., Windows or macOS, then there might be something that can be done on the Linux side, but it seems unlikely given the first two links above.